São Paulo – For 25 years Alessandro Stein Gonçalves (pictured above) has devoted himself to play pieces he builds himself. The craft of luthier started when he became fascinated by the sound of the Afro-Latin-American cajón and decided to make his own percussion instrument. Gonçalves had studied flamenco music before, a passion he inherited from his grandmother. Bringing together these two passions, he stumbled on the Arab instruments that he now builds.
“I discovered the Middle Eastern instruments through the flamenco art. My grandmother is from Almeria [Spain], one of Andalucía’s eight Moorish provinces. My interest for the Arab culture came naturally, since it’s ancestral [in that region],” said Alejo, the luthier’s nickname.
With an expertise in carpentry, he started building and rebuilding cajón’s models. Self-taught, he created other pieces, including Arab ones, such as tabla, an Arab pair of drums, that are sold at his brand’s website, AG Percusión. Derbake is one of the most well-known Arab instruments, and in 2019, at least one model was sold per month, only at the website. The Brazilian luthier describes it as contemporary instrument made popular in the 1970s.
But rebuilding pieces from regions with climates so different than Rio de Janeiro’s has required years of testing. “The derbake made here has to sound exactly like the one made in the Middle East. The biggest challenge is producing this classic instrument in a tropical country, in a city as humid as Rio,” he told ANBA.
Recreating sounds
In 2007, the craftsman started making derbakes of aluminum and acetate skin, but the high cost made him discontinue production. Now, Alejo keeps researching derbakes with other materials such as the body and tuning system made with wood and synthetic skin and produces ceramic bodies. Another instrument that has gained space in his studio is darbuka, a Persian-born drum played in countries such as Egypt and Turkey made of goatskin and a body of clay baked right there.
The instruments, he explains, are related. And their sizes, materials and names may vary from country to country. “This handmade nature requires differentiation, so I describe exactly the names of the models. Freedom isn’t misrepresenting, but participating and developing,” he explains.
Self-educated, the professional retraces the production path but keeps the motto “Thinking respectfully in respect to” the tradition each instrument carries. “People are looking more and more for these instruments. Recently a prominent Arab musician in São Paulo bought one, and having an Arab person buying your instrument is awesome. For me it’s a honor. It took a long time for it to happen, but it eventually did,” he said.
To arrive at this point, Alejo went through a long process of studying, examining several variables and then combining them. “Which is the best clay for the body of an instrument developed in the Middle East? And which thickness? What is the baking temperature for this kind of clay? It’s much more of transpiration than inspiration,” explains the luthier.
For the derbak, he found in the drum skin an answer to achieve the Easter sound. “I developed a technique [fitting of the skin onto the drum’s body] where the point zero for the sound modulation is well above [the traditional ones’]. I developed a gadget to measure that. I believe that even in the Middle East the instrument will behave well because, if it has an Arab music timber in a tropical country, it’ll have that quality there to,” he explains.
Now he works alone and has tried to make the work commercially worthwhile. “Relying on an instrument or two isn’t enough. While researching, I’ve already spent four hours looking at a screw. But once you solve it, once you find a pattern, the production at the studio is not dedicated to just one violin or guitar but to whole line of that instrument,” finished Alejo.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
